42. Pirates (Patreon)

A/N: Content warning for gore.


"Pirates!?" I yelp, jumping a little as Helen rapidly sits up, her head snapping back and forth to look for threats.

"Fuck, did we get boarded?"

"N-no," I stammer, glancing around the ship with my spatial sense and not seeing anyone I don't recognize. We're near the center of the hull, so my spatial sense can see everything but the far tips of the front and back. "The ship seems totally fine. We must've only just spotted them in the distance."

Helen relaxes a little, nodding.

"Right, duh, we're in open water. It's not like they could sneak up on us. Kagiso, get your ass up! We need to go to the deck."

Kagiso lets out a whiny growl and snuggles deeper into the covers until Helen forcibly kicks her out of bed. The two of them start quickly gearing up.

"Hey murderbot, how do you feel about killing some pirates?" Helen asks.

"I am harmless. I do not have onboard weapon systems," Sela reports.

"Right, forget I asked. Kagiso, bring it with us anyway, just in case."

I swallow the terror bubbling up inside me and silently crawl into Helen's backpack. Is this going to be another fight? Am I going to have to kill people? I really, really hope I don't have to kill people. Just thinking about it makes me hungry.

Helen and Kagiso are ready in under a minute, and soon enough I'm swung onto Helen's back and the four of us are rushing up to the deck, where the captain of the ship is barking out rapid orders. Helen pulls Kagiso to the side, making sure to stand close enough to the captain that our presence is obvious, but keeping well out of the way of any of the work going on. The deck is a flurry of activity, as is the engine room, where all four of the people who have been taking turns propelling the ship are currently driving the propeller shaft simultaneously. After a tense few minutes, the captain finally turns to address us.

"You lot can fight?" he snaps.

"Kagiso can," Helen answers, elbowing the dentron. Is she implying that she can't fight? "One of the best snipers you'll ever meet."

"Fuck," the captain swears. "Do not fire on that ship, do you hear me?"

He points behind us, to where the pirate ship presumably is, but I'm stuck in a backpack so I can't see it.

"No? Why?" Kagiso asks, tilting her head. "They bad guys, yes?"

"This is a fucking cargo vessel," the captain snaps at us. "That is a warship. They're not firing on us yet, so if you want to stay the fuck alive, you don't fire on them first. Understand?"

"Dark patch, Captain!" a voice yells from the tallest part of the ship. "Dead ahead! It's moving!"

"Fuck!" the captain swears even more profusely. "They're herding us into a leviathan! What type? Can you make it out?"

"I don't… wait, I think it's surfacing! Branch serpent!"

"Fuck! Are those damn pirates insane!? They're not going to be able to steal anything if we get sunk!"

"Perhaps they're banking on us preferring to tangle with them over a leviathan?" Helen suggests. "Even with the cargo weighing us down, we should outspeed them, right?"

"We should," the captain agrees. "Especially with how clean you've been keeping the drive shaft. But for some reason we aren't. With the ship that size they must have twice as many people working the engine, at least."

"Slavers, then. So we're risking the sea monster?"

The captain visibly hesitates, giving Helen a searching look for a moment before nodding.

"…Aye. I believe we are. Just stay back out of the way."

Helen looks to Kagiso.

"Hrm. Can maybe help," Kagiso frowns. "You have Matter mage? Can make big object?"

"We have a repair man, yes."

"Can use him. Big damage."

"Fine. Go there, on the upper deck, and stay out of the fucking way. Grom! Go stand with the white one and see if she's worth your time!"

He points to Helen, then.

"You get to the lower decks if you're not going to be any use."

"I'll stay out of the way," Helen says, nodding like she's agreeing with him even though she doesn't move to leave. He scowls, but quickly gets distracted giving more orders, leaving Helen and I alone.

"Here it comes!" someone shouts.

"Spells free!" the captain roars. "Never Could They Scratch Her Hull! Vacuum Crash!"

"Aura Sight! See Through The Sea!"

"Boil the Beasts!"

"The Steel Bites Back!"

The Goddess sings, a dozen spells blooming into being all at once. I sneak my own Aura Sight spell into the mess as I notice three other people all saying it. I suppose it's just as universal as Sindri said. Fortunately or unfortunately, I have no time to dwell on that, because barely a second later I see a giant, tentacle-like limb whip out of the water and scream towards us, crashing down from above.

The instant it brushes against our hull, the whole world shifts and we are suddenly somewhere else, the limb crashing into the sea right next to us instead of right through us. Then suddenly, the sap around the tendril twists in a startling direction, pouring into the fourth dimension and falling towards the trunk far, far below us. It happened so quickly and so violently that it leaves nothing behind, and the rest of the sap around the tentacle crashes into it from every side, twisting and damaging it. Then it starts to bubble, the sick smell of rotten syrup bursting out of the sea as the tentacle begins to boil.

Whatever the massive limb is attached to seems more enraged than injured, so yet another tentacle emerges from outside my field of view and tries to wrap around the ship. The metal twists and grows sharp, curved hooks like fangs emerging from the hull and chomping down before the beast can drag us into the depths.

Holy cannoli, what the heck are we fighting!? This thing is huge! I mean, I guess I probably should have expected it would be huge, since they called it a leviathan, but still! Is it a big squid or something? No, wait, that doesn't feel right at all. They called it a branch serpent, which is kind of weird because I would assume that your average serpent that lives on branches would not be aquatic. I'm pretty sure most branches aren't supposed to be aquatic. The tentacles don't have suckers or anything like that, they look more like giant eel tails. They have skeletons in them! Entire spines! I'm pretty sure tentacles don't have those.

Yet as more and more of the creature approaches us, I continue finding myself expecting a main body to be on the other end of its grasping limbs, but I only end up seeing more and more of the same. Tendrils on tendrils on tendrils, swirling and snaking and grasping for our boat with the intent to crush it like a soda can.

Kagiso uses Velocity to launch huge, summoned chunks of metal at whatever parts of the monster are currently surfaced, ripping gouges through its flesh. Altogether crewmates burn and tear and rip and cut, barely fending off strike after strike, and all the while I'm stuck here, waiting in a backpack. Helpless. Useless. All of my spells are too short-ranged, and even if I did somehow get close enough to use Spacial Rend, the best I could do is cut maybe a foot into the monster's flesh, which doesn't seem all that helpful against a beast with countless limbs each thicker than tree trunks. What should I do? Is there anything I can do?

"A bunch of sap is splashing up onto the boat," Helen says under her breath. "Come on, we're going to clean it. We can at least make this place a little less sticky during the fight."

"Is that all?" I hiss back. "Can't you just blast it to dust?"

"Maybe?" Helen hedges. "But only if you want to turn everybody on the boat against us. No point in killing the monster if it just means they'll kick us off to drown."

Dang it, that's right. Everyone will probably turn against us if they find out Helen is a Chaos mage. Best case scenario then would be to… what, threaten everyone into submission and make them continue taking us to our destination?

A crash rocks the side of the boat and I force myself to focus on the fight. More and more tendrils, or tails, or whatever-they-are are popping up all around us, and for every one we destroy, two more seem to emerge from the depths. Deep below us, at the edge of my sensory range, I'm starting to see where they connect, but I still can't find the body. It seems like each tentacle is simply attached to another tentacle, butting off of one another at pseudo-random intervals, almost like… a branch.

Branch serpent. Of course. The serpent is shaped like a branch, with forks and splits and a countless number of redundant tails. We are never going to defeat it at this rate, not because we aren't making progress but just because the monster is so ridiculously big, all we're doing is stubbing its toes. You'd think after stubbing so many of its toes it would eventually just leave though, right? How territorial is this thing?

Kagiso is doing serious damage by teaming up with a Matter mage for oversized ammunition. The captain of the ship is also pretty terrifying, using what looks like Space and Motion magic to teleport us out of harm's way and counter with devastating vacuums. The whole crew is contributing, but I have absolutely no idea whether or not we're winning.

Helen scurries around the deck, making her way closer to Kagiso as we avoid disgusting and potentially dangerous splashes of rancid sap. Kagiso seems like she's struggling with something, and as we approach I hear her mutter something to herself.

"Mama? Papa? Teboho?" she asks the air. "Is it okay now?"

"Kagiso?" Helen asks, the battle raging around us.

"Am allowed now, do you think?" Kagiso mutters.

"Kagiso, are you okay?" Helen presses. "What are you talking about?"

"Have better spell for this," Kagiso answers quietly.

"Then you should use it!?"

"Not supposed to."

"Why the fuck not? Is it going to backfire on us or something?"

Kagiso shrugs, her short white for blowing every which way in the wind. Drawing back another arrow, she mutters "Velocity" and launches it at the impromptu scrap cannonball that materializes in front of her shortly afterwards.

"No. Is safe. Mostly. Just not supposed to use it. Family said so."

Helen freezes up when Kagiso mentions her family, and I grit my teeth into a spidery grimace. Helen definitely isn't going to argue any further now, but if Kagiso has a spell we don't know about that can turn the tides, we need her to use it.

"Why did your family tell you not to use it?" I ask as quietly as I can while still expecting to get heard over the din of battle. I don't know if the nearby Matter mage hears me, but if he does he doesn't seem to react.

"Don't know," Kagiso grunts. "Was always two kinds of spell. Spells that okay to use, and spells that I like."

"You weren't allowed to use your favorite spells?" I press. "That doesn't sound good at all."

"I've never heard about this," Helen scowls.

"Was just the rules," Kagiso says. "Not sure why they were there. Not sure if they okay to break. Not sure if Teboho let me."

I hesitate. What kind of spells would Kagiso's family not want her to use? I think I might actually have a pretty good idea, and all my ideas are scary. But still. They're hers. For some reason, I really, really don't like the idea of anyone telling her what she can and cannot do with them.

"Kagiso," I say firmly. "If you want to use your magic, and you think it will help, please do it. Whatever it is, I trust you."

Kagiso nods slowly.

"Velocity," she says again, using an arrow to launch yet another ball of scrap. It rockets off towards one of the tendrils bearing down on the deck, ripping an enormous hole through its side. Then, Kagiso puts away her bow. She lifts both arms, and she takes a deep breath.

She grins.

"I Want To Play With Your Organs," the Goddess cackles, and viscera rips itself from the wound.

Uh. Yep. That seems about right.

The tendril falls limp as a torrent of gore pours out of it, tearing the wound open deeper as the muscles and tendons, still dripping with blood, free themselves from the skin and bone to start attacking the rest of their former body. Kagiso cackles wildly, her arms swishing up and down through the air to direct her dripping, stringy playthings like a conductor. When another tendril branch tries to slam down on the ship, Kagiso catches it, tendons wrapping around it like ropes as muscle fibers dig into the other wounds and scratches, ripping them open to give Kagiso more material to work with.

"Deeper!" Kagiso crows. "Haven't even gotten to the squishy ones!"

The Matter mage that had been helping her backs away nervously, catching on to the fact that his services are no longer needed. Kagiso yanks on the great Leviathan, accomplishing little at first but slowly, ever so slowly, starting to pull it towards the surface.

The rest of the battle hasn't paused in the meantime, with nearly a dozen tentacles still flailing seriously at the ship. Countless spells fly, the whole battlefield turning into a horrifying torrent of every type of magic together. And the more damage we deal to the monster, the more viscera starts flying to Kagiso's will. How much can she control at once!? Kagiso herself seems enraptured to the point of possibly not even being lucid anymore, an unblinking, wide-eyed stare consuming her face, the only motion being little twitches in her eyes as she drinks in the macabre sight.

"That's it, men!" the captain roars. "We've got her on the ropes now! Vacuum Crash!"

"Shit," Helen curses. "We're too slow."

"What do you mean?" I ask.

A deafening roar drowns out her answer, the branch serpent's head finally emerging to join the battle. Immediately, the wild strikes it had been sending our way become a lot more coordinated, and the threat of the massive jaws—large enough to bite our ship in half—quickly reverses the uptick in morale. At least, it does for everybody other than Kagiso, who somehow grins even wider even as a massive gathering of energy around the leviathan's mouth indicates it's starting to cast a spell of its own. Every bit of weaponized gore flies towards the monster's mouth at once, aiming to tear open its throat from the inside.

"Fun bits are here!" Kagiso announces gleefully. "Squishy bits! Mine! All—"

"Soulseeker Flame!"

An unidentifiable heat, invisible to my spatial sense, streaks past Helen and I and hits Kagiso in the side, causing her to shriek in pain. I see the fur around where she's hit burn away almost immediately, and I can't help but pop part of my body out of Helen's backpack in order to get an eye on what's going on. Another ball of ghostly purple flame flies past me as I do, hitting Kagiso in the chest. She catches fire, screaming and squeezing her eyes shut, her spell deactivating as she collapses to the floor, clawing at the flames to try and put them out.

"Refresh!" I shout, pulling the oxygen away from Kagiso for just the split second needed to extinguish her. Yet another ball of purple fire is flying towards us, though, so I prepare to leap into its path to shield Kagiso with my body, but the sea monster makes another swipe at our ship and the captain's protective teleportation spell activates, leaving me completely disoriented as we suddenly end up somewhere else.

"Combined Cannonade!"

Before I can orient myself, an explosion rings out behind us, and I finally realize how close the pirate ship has become. I don't have time to marvel how much larger than our boat it is, however, because an enormous, magical cannon shell rips clean through our boat a moment later, ripping a giant hole through both us and the leviathan's head in one shot.

Then I realize the magical purple fire is still flying through the air, and somehow it has swerved at a sharp angle to follow us after the teleportation. It's on the far side of Kagiso now! I stumble, trying to protect her, but I got too distracted by the cannon shot!

I watch in slow motion as the flame descends on Kagiso's prone body, already ravaged by the prior attacks. But then, Sela's arm tears out of the backpack and swats the flame aside, its body ripping through the fabric as it unfolds, crouching protectively over Kagiso with one working leg.

"Graveyard Soul," the Goddess says, copying Sela's monotone intonation, and a cold stillness settles over the two of them. Another ball of fire flies overhead, but it doesn't swerve to home in on Kagiso this time. Did… Did Sela save her!? Well! Gosh! Okay! Go Sela!

"Pneuma tracking disrupted," Sela announces. "Target has been stabilized. Requesting counterattack."

"I can't," Helen scowls, glaring up at the pirate ship.

"Now really doesn't seem like a great time to worry about what happens afterwards!" I snap at her. "We need to be able to survive this right now!"

"My ranged attack spells aren't exactly discriminatory," Helen answers calmly, her arms crossed. "If I tried to kill anyone on the ship from here, we would just have zero seaworthy boats stranded in the ocean instead of one seaworthy boat crawling with pirates. Not a good trade."

I stiffen, taking a moment to glance around the inside of the ship and realizing how screwed we are right now. There's a hole in the lower decks nearly fifteen feet across. It's a miracle the ship is in one piece at all, and we are taking on sap so fast that we definitely won't be floating much longer.

"Ho, there!" a booming voice rings out from the pirate ship. "Sincere apologies! We weren't expecting you to teleport in front of our shot like that. Bardrick, keep them afloat!"

"Deny The Depths," one of the unexpectedly helpful pirates casts, our ship shuddering as its slow descent halts. The pirate ship itself slowly approaches us, nearly twice our boat's size in every direction, and soon enough it is close enough that we can make out a figure standing on the edge of the deck and looking down on us. Quite a few pirates peer down, dressed in simple, if dirty clothing, but one in particular clearly stands above the others. At least if the size of his hat is anything to go by.

"Hide," Helen hisses quietly at me. "Hide and stay hidden. Don't let them see you, no matter what."

I don't hesitate and just obey her, scooting back down into the backpack. These jerks hurt Kagiso. They're bad news.

"Sela, act like you're dead," Helen orders, and the robot glowers at her with naked fury. Nonetheless, it obeys, very slowly collapsing on top of Kagiso's back. Kagiso herself is unconscious, but I can see that her heart is beating and her lungs are breathing. She's in bad shape, but she's not dying, at least.

Helen kneels down and pries Sela off of Kagiso, hooking the former to the top of her backpack and lifting the latter up in her arms. The pirates continue addressing us as a door in the middle of their ship opens up, a gangplank extending over to our deck.

"Come on aboard!" the fancy-hatted pirate calls. "One at a time, there's no rush! Your lives and your cargo are all safe, don't you worry about a thing!"

Our ship's captain swears under his breath, the crew all looking at each other helplessly. With a frustrated sigh, the Matter mage that was helping Kagiso starts walking up the gangplank to the pirate ship. At the other end waits a chubby-looking man with a foul grin. I focus my still-active Aura Sight on him and immediately get angry. Heat and Pneuma.

"That's a good lad, one at a time," the fat Pneuma mage encourages. "You'll be nice and safe here. Of course, we need a little insurance that you lot aren't the dangerous type. You understand."

The Matter mage sighs and nods.

"Good!" the fat man grins, placing his hand on the Matter mage's chest. "Rebellion's Lament."

I feel the Goddess coil around him, but I can only guess as to what the spell does. Helen's eyes narrow.

"What are your naturalborn elements?" the fat man asks. "What does your magic do?"

"Pure Matter. Raw material generation, metal focus. I fix the ship."

"Good, good. Next!"

Helen does nothing, letting a couple other crewmates head onto the boat first. Each time, the mind mage casts that spell on them and then asks those two questions. The captain ends up walking over to the other ship before most of his crew, which surprises and mildly offends me for some reason. Aren't captains supposed to go down with their ship? Or at least like, let their crew off first? I mean, I guess that's just a random stupid cultural thing from my world so I guess it probably doesn't translate to other cultures…

"What are your naturalborn elements? What does your magic do?"

"Space and Motion," the captain reports. "I… help propel and protect my ship."

"That's right, we saw," the mind mage says thoughtfully, continuing the conversation rather than just sending the man on for the first time. "It looks like… automatic teleportation in response to threats, yes?"

"…That's right."

Oh. Oh, I get it! They were scouting out our spells! That's why they drove us into the monster, not because they couldn't overtake us but because they needed to know what we were capable of before they committed to attack. Because everyone in the world has magic! Everyone in the world can potentially be a terrifying threat, so it's not safe to attack people if you don't know what sort of bullpoop they can crap out of their butts whenever the going gets rough. Pirates can't just attack random boats, because they have absolutely no way of knowing whether some random guy on board is capable of blowing up town until after the fight starts. To get around that, they needed to force us to show off what we can do.

"That's a mighty impressive ability, sir," the Pneuma mage declares. "Why, I think any sailor would be jealous to have it. You wouldn't be capable of casting a spell like that on our ship, would you? Just while we have you on board."

The captain goes silent for just a short moment, glancing around at the giant vessel.

"No, unfortunately I don't believe I could," the captain answers hesitantly. "Your ship is quite a bit heavier than—"

The captain explodes. A hot bloom of force erupts from his chest and sprays his body in every direction. In less than a blink, he is dead.

The pirate Pneuma mage—Pneuma and Heat mage—brushes bits of charred corpse off the front of his jacket.

"Now that's a damn shame," he announces, projecting his voice so that everyone can hear him. "Here we are, just trying to be friendly and help out people in need, and you just have to go and lie to us. I suggest the rest of you think twice before you do the same. My spell doesn't hurt anyone as long as they stay kind and civil. But if you plot against us, if you try to hurt us, if you lie to us… you will die. All you have to do is exactly what you're told. Something you should be doing anyway as thanks for rescue! Start making too many plans for anything else, though..."

He trails off, allowing the demonstration to speak for him.

"Now come on up. One at a time. Or would you rather drown?"

Rather understandably, no one seems all that inclined to move. At least not until Helen sighs and steps forward, calling up at the pirate.

"My friend can't walk for herself! She's unconscious! Is it alright if I carry her up to you?"

The fat, murderous bastard smiles.

"Of course, thank you for having the presence of mind to ask!"

Helen nods stiffly, carrying all three of us up the gangplank with her.

"Now what is all this you have here? Rebellion's Lament. Rebellion's Lament."

He casts his spell on both Helen and Kagiso. Helen just rolls her shoulder slightly and tilts her head backwards to indicate Sela.

"Steel One," Helen answers. "I hear they're worth a fortune."

Okay! Technically none of that is a lie. Good job, Helen!

"That they are," the pirate agrees with slimy amicability. "What are your naturalborn elements? What does your magic do?"

"Art and Order," Helen declares confidently. "I've got really good cleaning magic, and I can make carvings of people that make them stronger."

Holy crap what!? Why did she… oh no, oh no, oh no! That's a complete lie! She's going to explode! The pirate grins at her, but she just stares blankly back.

"Ah, I see," he nods. "That sounds handy. You wouldn't mind cleaning up around here while we have you, would you?"

"No problem," Helen nods, and even through my panic I recognize that as my cue to cast a silent Refresh, clearing all the gunk out of the doorway and off the pirate's clothes and tossing it into the sea. To my utter disgust, he looks delighted.

"Wonderful! Wonderful. And what about your friend here?"

"She's pure Motion," Helen says. "She can transfer momentum to stuff. And I guess she really likes blood and guts, so she can move that around? I'm honestly not super clear on it, but I promise she'll behave. I just want her to live."

"Of course, of course!" the pirate smiles. "I'm sure she'll be fine. Welcome aboard."

How? How, how, how? What the heck!? How did we survive that?

"Hard part's coming up, Hannah," Helen whispers. "You'd better not get caught."

Wait, there's more!?

"Over here!" a woman with like eighty billion piercings and Art/Transmutation magic shouts at us. Holy crap, she has more rings than she does skin. "Dump your bags, kid. Show us what you got."

Ah. Yeah, we're screwed. What the heck do I do here? Helen calmly kneels down and puts Kagiso on the ground, then Sela, and then finally takes her backpack off. With me still inside it, of course! Aaaaaah!

Come on Hannah, think. Think! How can you get out of this? Helen probably expect you to just step into a barren zone and do your little disappearing act, but she doesn't know that you can't do that right now. I'm in the middle of the Sapsea, the closest fourth dimensional piece of wood for me to actually walk on is probably miles below us! If I shift into the fourth dimension, I will fall through the fourth dimension and then die. So how am I supposed to hide!? I'm nowhere near small enough to get lost in this backpack, all it would take is for someone to pull the one piece of clothing between me and the top off of my head and I'll be in plain view. I have to step out of sight, but I can't because if I lose my footing I'll…

Wait. Footing. Oh my Goddess, I'm so stupid!

Hooking my legs into the fabric of the backpack itself, I carefully, very carefully, push my body in that impossible direction. Not all at once. If I shift all at once, I will die. But if I don't shift enough, everyone might die! I can't get caught here. So I twist, I move myself just a little bit at a time, quickly and carefully, until the cold chill of 4D space covers every part of my body except my claws.

The backpack opens. The pirate rummages through it, taking everything out and laying it on the ground. But she doesn't find me, because there's not enough of me there to be found. I am literally hanging by the tips of my toes over an impossible abyss, though, so I really hope nobody shakes the backpack or something like that.

The pirate lifts up and shakes the backpack, and I very heroically do not scream.

"Huh, nothing much of value besides that Steel One frame," the pierced pirate woman grunts. "How about we take that right down to the cargo hold, just for safekeeping."

"Of course," Helen says, sounding worried.

"Good girl," the pirate sneers, ruffling Helen's hair. "And since you can clean shit, clean everything on our way there."

"Yes ma'am."

As soon as the backpack closes again, I pull myself back inside it and start cleaning. Cleaning, at least, I can do. It helps me calm down a little, slows my rapidly beating heart and makes my breaths a little quieter. So… status report, me. We are on a pirate ship full of creeps, Helen and Kagiso have a spell that will blow them up if they resist, Sela is somehow successfully playing dead with its death magic but is still unable to walk on its own, and then there is me, a terrified idiot with no idea what the hell is going on or what I'm supposed to do about it.

I'm going to guess it probably involves killing people. I really don't want to kill people.

Helen follows the pirate around for a while, dropping Kagiso into a ratty shared bedroom and Sela in the cargo bay with other valuable plunder before being led around the ship and told what to clean. We spend hours like that, being ruthlessly overworked without even a chance to rest after fighting the leviathan to the death. It's not like we can complain, though, what with bombs strapped to almost everyone. It's only once Helen looks like she's about to collapse that we get ordered back to where Kagiso is sleeping and shoved into the room with her. Oh, hey. This 'bedroom' locks from the outside. Would you look at that.

Wait. Why is Helen exhausted? She hasn't actually done anything other than walk around. She didn't even fight!

"Okay," Helen whispers. "I think we can do this."

"Wait, back up," I hiss back. "You think we can do what? And how did you avoid exploding back there!? You lied right to his face!"

Helen sighs, running her fingers through her hair. She grabs a few strands and gives them a weird look.

"I'm still not used to how clean this is," she mutters, "but it made selling the story pretty easy."

"What does that have to do with anything?" I ask. "That guy was Heat and Pneuma! His spell read your intents and blows you up, he literally explained that right to our faces!"

"Well it's your fault for believing him," Helen shrugs. "Come on, Hannah. It's the oldest trick in the book. A spell's name has to accurately describe what it does, but there's nothing stopping you from saying a spell's name and then immediately gaslighting everybody about its effects."

"The spell is just called Rebellion's Lament! How are you supposed to know it isn't a lie detector from a name that simple?"

"Well, it's not really because of the name," Helen shrugs. "It's because of how he used it. They targeted the captain of the ship, and called him a liar on something that nobody—neither their crew nor ours—could know for sure if he was telling the truth on. It's too convenient. They didn't challenge people on vague answers, they didn't care about getting detailed information on our spells, so none of those questions were really designed to get relevant information. They already had information  on our spells because they saw us use them to fight. That means it's all show. That whole thing was just set up to scare us and keep us in line."

"Wait, so are you saying that you aren't going to explode if we fight our way out?"

"Uh, well, no. They're certainly confident that Rebellion's Lament is enough to keep us in line, and at minimum it still works as a fucking bomb collar. It is probably at least very similar to how he described it: it will blow us up if we rebel. It's hard to know if that means just plotting against them like he said, but I haven't exploded so either my partial Pneuma resistance makes it harder for his spell to know what I'm thinking, or his spell just activates if we physically attack someone. I definitely don't want to find out."

"But they don't know I exist," I say numbly, shivering slightly. "So I can go assassinate the Pneuma mage and free everyone at once."

"Actually, I think we need to kill a lot of people before we go for the bomb collar guy. If we just free everybody and they start a riot, we risk ending up with nobody left alive who actually knows how to sail this boat. Not to mention that the pirates dramatically outnumber us and they are professional slavers with access to a lot of dangerous magic. We can't just chop off one head of a hydra and expect things to work out. Give me some time to prepare, though, and I think we can pull this off."

I watch Helen's distant gaze, her eyes glancing around at nothing as she bites her thumb, deep in thought. Slowly, one side of her mouth twitches up into a smile. Something about it makes me shudder.

"…You really think we can kill all the pirates without getting caught?" I ask carefully. She hasn't mentioned killing them all or not getting caught or anything like that, but the way she's smiling like that…

"Oh, sure," she shrugs. "This doesn't look like a particularly detailed operation. It would be easy if I could just kill them myself, but you should do okay."

…Yeah. Oh, Goddess.

"You sound like you've done this before," I say slowly.

Her smile drops at that, falling back into her usual scowl.

"…A lot of Chaos hunters have come after me, you know," she says. "Your Sindri was far from the first. I went way easy on you guys, you know. And someone still died."

Helen hugs herself a little.

"Anyway, I've obviously survived every time someone has tried to kill me. So yeah, I have a bit of experience here. And in a situation like this, information is king. That's why I didn't fight the monster. That's why I kept you hidden. I figured something like this was going to happen from the start, and your cards are never stronger than when people don't even know you have them. Everybody comes to fight a Chaos mage expecting raw, unbridled destruction. Nobody expects the subtle stuff to be the real danger until it's too late."

She goes quiet for a moment, sitting down on the bed next to Kagiso and hugging her knees.

"…Besides, these guys are murderers and slavers. So it's actually kind of nice."

"Um. Nice?" I squeak.

Helen laughs.

"I was always kind of jealous of the Chaos hunters, you know?" she admits. "Getting to kill people and not having to feel guilty about it? That sounds amazing."